Hey Everyone,

From my brief discussions with each of you at the end of class yesterday, it seems as if everyone is headed in a good direction with this paper. Again, if you have not purchased a copy of Synecdoche yet, please do so immediately.

For the sake of clarity, I want to go over some of the basic concepts that we have discussed in class so far.

A. Discourse, as we discussed it in class, is a three part concept:
1. unit of language (novel, short story, poem, speech, movie, television program, article, discussion, etc) that addresses a particular topic or issue
2. Particular attention to the social and cultural influences on this topic or issue
3. Since we cannot get away for language - after all we think, give information, and receive information only through the use of language - the discourse of a society constructs the reality of that society. Put another way, we tell each other:
    a. what we can and cannot do
    b. what is important and unimportant to us
    c.who is one of us and who is not one of us
    d. what we love and what we hate
    e. what is true and what is false
based on how we talk and what we do and do not talk about.

B. Discourse is particularly important to  postcolonial, gender, and power culture criticism. Each of these methods deal with how the reality of a culture is built by our discourse (how we use language). For postcolonial criticism, emphasis is placed on the way a culture's discourse constructs its reality about ethnic, cultural and national identities of who is "us" and who is "the other." Gender criticism places emphasis on the way a culture's discourse constructs its reality about what role and behaviours are acceptable for a man and what roles and behaviours are acceptable for a woman. Finally, power culture criticism emphasizes the way that a culture's discourse communicates fear and thereby creates and enforces rules and behaviour that are important to that group.

Your assignment for the final paper would be to select a piece from Synecdoche and consider it as a piece of discourse. Look at it as a piece of language/communication about a particular topic that reflects the way that society constructs its reality. Does is support or undercut traditional cultural discourse about the issues it addresses? If you are doing postcolonialism, does your piece of discourse encourage or subvert the cultural discourse of an ethnic, cultural, or national "other?" If you are doing gender, does your piece of discourse agree or disagree with traditional cultural discourses about the roles of men and women? If you are doing power culture, does your piece of discourse demonstrate or subvert the use of fear to control who what is socially acceptable?

D. Narratology does not deal as directly with the idea of discourse as we have defined the term. Instead, narratology is an examination of how a story tells its story. How does a story keep the reader involved? How does a story elicit a response? As we said in class, narratology is a bit like taking apart the engine of a car and spreading it out on a table to figure out what part does what. The narratologist looks at the parts of a story and sees how they work. We also drew the anaology of watching a film and realizing that the writer or director is trying to push our emotional buttons with a particular scene (a cute little boy with glasses and a funny voice, a teary reunion in an airport, or a slow motion death scene are examples that come to mind). Making this realization is a way of thinking narratologically. You are thinking about how a part of a story is "working" to bring about a desired response in a its audience. For the purposes of our discussion, we divided the engine of a story into three parts:
1. Proairetic code: the twists and turns that drive the story forward and keeps the readers' attention.
 2. Hermeutic code: the way a story hides information and meaning in order to make the reader   ask questions about particular parts of the story and the story as a whole.
    3. Narrative Transference: the readers' identification with the story and its meaning. Readers      desire to test their interpretation of the story's meaning and impact with the interpretations of others. The reader puts energy into this process and it is as if his or her energy has been
trasferred by the energy put into the creative process by author/speaker/writer/director in the         first place.

Your job would be to select a piece from Synecdoche and discuss how the codes work in that particular piece and how they elicit narrative transference to keep the reader invested in teh sory. The paper itself can be set up into sections resembling these key principles. Narratological Analysts may even ask other to read portions of the texts found to be highly energized at the proairetic and hermenutic levels to see how they experience the text and compare them. But many rely on their own experience of the text alone.

Hope that helps a bit. There is no mandatory class on Thursday. I prefer that you use that day as a research day. That means that you are responsible to spend the time in whatever way you think best prepares you to write the paper. I will be available in our classroom to answer questions and help out in whatever way I can. The computers will be available for your use as well.

Dempster has included some great links on his critical analysis methods post. I would encourage you to use them when you are doing your research. I would also encourage you to visit this site:
http://www.cla.purdue.edu/academic/engl/theory/index.html
Be aware that we are in theory-land here and, as you will find with any complex subject, there will be some variance in how people define and explain certain terms and concepts.

I have also put a handy little book on short-loan reserve in the library: Beginning Theory: An Introduction to Literary and Cultural Theory by Peter Barry. It is an exceedingly helpful and accessible text that, I think, will help you make sense of some of these ideas. This is my personal copy and, as such, I can only have it on hold for one week. It will be on hold from April 9th-April 16th.

This paper must be 5-7 page in length and must utilize at least two sources outside of the Synecdoche. Research how this method works and what the sources and players in that field say about how it works. Apply what you have learned about that critical method to performing an analysis of your chosen piece from Synecdoche.

Finally, remember that we agreed upon a due date of April 18th for the first draft and a due date of May 2nd for the final draft.

Let me know if I can be of any additional help.

***UPDATE***

I have changed the required number of sources from min of three to a min of two.

Also, there has been some confusion about how this paper is supposed to be "look" and how the sources are supposed to be used. Let me break it down for you.

You are supposed to research the methodology and be able to explain how your chosen method of critical analysis works. For example, if you are doing narratology, your job would be to find sources that explain how narratology works. The same goes for any of the methods discussed in class.

However, this paper is not about the methods; it is about how the methods work when analyzing the piece you have chosen in Synecdoche. As a result, you can format the paper in whatever way seems to make the most sense to you . . .  as long as it is organized and makes sense. Here are some ideas:

I. Methodology (using sources to help explain)
II. Analyze poem using that methodology

or

I Methodology Part I (using sources to help explain)
II. Using Part I to analyze poem
III. Methodology Part II (using sources to help explain)
IV. Using Part II to analyze poem
V. Methodology Part III (using sources to help explain)
VI. Using Part II to analyze poem

For that last example, I don't mean that every method can be split up into three subsections. It may be two or four. It depends on how you do it.

Finally, PLEASE check out Example Essay 4 "Narratology Applied to Literature" by Natalie Taylor in Dempster's English 220 Syllabus. It is a great example of how to go about doing this essay. You can find the PDF document here.

Let me know if anyone needs more clarification.

Cheers,
Professor Adams